No injuries as fire threatens Houston retail icon

By Dale Lezon |
May 22, 2009

Early in the morning today after fire destroyed his huge furniture warehouse on the North Freeway and millions of dollars worth of furniture inside it, Jim McIngvale was hard at work at his other location in the Galleria area.

McIngvale was filming a television commercial to be broadcast as soon as possible to let the public know the recently opened Gallery Furniture store at 2411 Post Oak near Westheimer is open for business.

He said he was determined to continue serving the Houston community and would rebuild his burned warehouse and get the freeway location opened whenever it was possible.

"We're resilient," he said. "We're able to change game plans."

The four-alarm blaze erupted about 9 p.m. and raced through Gallery Furniture's warehouse at 6006 Interstate 45 North, between Tidwell and Parker. Firefighters were able to keep the fire from spreading to the showroom, but smoke may have damaged the display furniture.

No injuries were reported.

Work crews planned to use heavy equipment to separate debris to make sure embers were not still burning.

McIngvale said at least $5 million in inventory was lost as well as equipment, but that he wouldn't know the total loss until he could assess the damage. He also doesn't know when the freeway store can reopen.

"We lost a lot of material possessions," he said today. "But we didn't lose the most valuable possession, which is human life."

McIngvale said that he expected furniture that had been loaded into trucks for delivery will arrive to customers later today.

He also expected to find a warehouse as soon as possible to store the new stock merchandise scheduled to be delivered to his store.

After his latest commercial was finished and the Galleria-area store opened this morning, several customers stopped by to check on the delivery of their furniture and to browse for other items.

Evelyn Velasquez said she had just finished breakfast at a nearby restaurant and stopped by the store to look around.

She said she had bought furniture from Gallery before and was not in the market for anything in particular, but she wanted to browse to see if there was anything she could buy to help McIngvale and his store rebound.

He has been a generous philanthropist in the community and she hoped the community would now help him.

"We'll just find a way to give back to him," Velasquez.said, "even if it just means purchasing anything that we can."

Former President George H.W. Bush issued a statement today, saying he spoke to McIngvale this morning and was releved no one was hurt.

"If anyone can overcome this adversity, it is our friends Mack and Linda (McIngvale) and their terrific team," said Bush from his summer home in Maine. "Like so many Houstonians, our thoughts — and continued support — are with the Gallery Furniture family."

McIngvale was at the store when the blaze ignited. After an employee alerted him of a possible fire, McIngvale looked at surveillance cameras monitoring the property. “I saw 10-foot flames and realized how serious it was,” he said.

Flames towered over the warehouse’s storage area when fire crews arrived and started dousing it with elevated water cannons.

But the contents of the furniture storage warehouse only increased the flames. “It’s good fuel – it’s basically a big wood fire,” said Houston Fire Department District Chief Tommy Dowdy.

As 150 firefighters worked to contain the blaze, Mayor Bill White showed up to lend his support.

What caused the blaze was not immediately known. One employee said the fire may have started near a generator in the warehouse, but that report has not been officially confirmed, Dowdy said.

A man who identified himself as one of the store’s area managers, but declined to give his name, said fire alarms alerted everyone to get out.

“In like two minutes, the whole warehouse was full of smoke,” the manager said.

Customers and employees left “in an orderly fashion,” he said.

Five or six employees grabbed fire extinguishers in an attempt to douse the blaze when it started, “but then it came back up again. They couldn’t control it,” said Carolyn Phillips, Gallery Furniture’s director of human resources.

As firefighters came close to extinguishing the flames, McIngvale and about 100 employees gathered in a circle in the parking lot. Flanked by fire trucks and emergency workers, he led the group in a prayer and a rousing version of “God Bless America.”

“Dear Lord,” he prayed, “we hope you help us get through this night, and we thank you for nobody being hurt.”

The fire was put out at 11:06 p.m., but crews remained on site to assess the damage.

McIngvale is among Houston’s most successful entrepreneurs. He and his wife Linda opened the store at an empty model home park on a weedy lot in 1981, with just $5,000 in hand.

In the early days of Gallery Furniture, McIngvale and his wife slept there to guard their four sofas.

But the business experienced phenomenal growth. Recently, Gallery Furniture ranked 70th on a list of Houston-based private companies compiled by the Chronicle. The company earned $113 million in 2008 and has 329 employees on the payroll.

Through his high-energy advertising campaigns, McIngvale has turned his business into a cultural landmark and made himself a celebrity.

He is well-known for his community work, from contributing to hurricane relief efforts to initiating pep rallies for local sports teams. He and his wife own the Westside Tennis Club.

McIngvale tried to stay positive during the fire.

“We’ve got great people — we’ll make it through this,” said McIngvale, as he stood somberly outside the store with employees and friends. “We made it through Hurricane Ike. We’re still alive. We can come back and do this tomorrow.”